


Itching Fingers

by bondboy68



Category: Cloud Atlas (2012), Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell, Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 09:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bondboy68/pseuds/bondboy68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He dreamt of music.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Itching Fingers

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by vividoodles on tumblr. Another Q as a reincarnation of Robert Frobisher thing. The book is fresher in my mind than the movie since I'm currently using it, so some of the references are straight from that.

He dreamt of music. It was beautiful, moving, passionate, familiar. And always gone when he woke up. His mind would stretch out to try and claim the last disappearing notes and would come back empty. At University he took a classical music appreciation class just to see if maybe he could find it. Nothing was exactly what he was looking for. He didn’t even know what he was looking for. It was foolish, probably just some lullaby he’d heard in the crib that was imbedded in his subconscious. But the dreams never did stop. 

Once he thought he could have had it. There was a melody playing over and over in his head and he was sure it wasn’t from any song he’d heard on the radio recently. He snuck over to the music department, to the practice rooms, and found an unused one holding a massive grand piano. Sitting down, he poised his fingers. Never a lesson, didn’t know a single note. Maybe it would just come to him? He pressed a few keys down and jumped at the deafening, off-key screech. A foolish exercise. He ran quickly from the building before anybody came to investigate who was making such distasteful racket. 

He stopped trying to find the song after that. His world lay in computers; in binary and code. In wires and keys and algorithms. Everything had a place, everything was simple when it was broken down to its basic part. And then you built it back up again to something complex and ingenious, and dare he say beautiful? It was almost like directing as symphony, only not something that would elect emotion from anybody else. It was cold and mechanical. He liked to play classical music while he worked. 

He had a birthmark, a comet shaped one on his hip. He hated for people to touch it, comment on it. It felt wrong somehow, like it was meant to be a secret. He flinched away when a lover’s hand dropped close, wanting to trace it. It was easier to just fuck in the dark. 

Relationships were horrendous things to be avoided at all costs. He wished he could avoid sex as well, but the body has needs. Humans make far less sense than machines but eventually he figures out an algorithm to help there, too. Say this, wait for this reaction, a touch here, a smile. Never an exchange of numbers or e-mails. 

There was a marriage woman, once, that he took to for a short period. Never love or even infatuation. But she seemed so lonely and she loved to talk about books and art and music. Always it came back to music. 

“You’re staring,” she told him one night as they lay in bed, sharing a cigarette. 

“Sorry, I just....dejavu.” 

She raised an eyebrow. “Been having dreams about me?”

“No.”

“Sleeping with other married women?”

“Of course not. It’s just...it felt familiar for a second, is all.”

She took that the completely wrong way and he soon had to cut it off completely. He wasn’t in the business of rescuing depressed housewives from their workaholic husbands. 

Then there was the computer specialist he interned for while finished up school. The man was much older than him and at first he seemed to be a genius. There was a chance the younger man was falling in love. When he drunkenly confessed his feelings he was chuckled out and pleasantly turned down. It felt like a dagger in his chest. 

No more love. No more relationships. It all just felt too familiar, like it was all doomed to fail spectacularly before it even started. He felt haunted by relationships he’d never even had. MI6 was a good excuse. Too busy, too much work. You can’t make beautify and emotion in lines of code but who needs it? He rubbed his fingers when they itched and wished he could learn to paint, or play and instrument, or maybe just doodle because something at the back of his mind yearned to create something with colour. 

“What’s that?” he asked Moneypenny as he entered the break room for a fresh mug of tea. She had her stilettoed feet propped up on the table, reading a thin hardback. 

“The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing,” she said, showing him the tattered cover. He blinked. 

“I’ve read that.” 

She looked surprised. “Have you? The shopkeep informed me that it’s very rare. Been out of print for decades.” 

He held out his hand and she handed over the book. A quick flip through and he frowned. “No...I guess I haven’t read it. Sounds awfully familiar, though...”

He rubbed his itching fingers while he waited for the water to heat.


End file.
